Cost Effective Printing Method

The cost of your printing method affects you whether you are just starting a business or have been operating for a number of years already. Knowing the method that is most cost-effective for your company will surely save you from spending an amount of money that can be allocated to other aspects of your business.

WHAT ARE THE TWO TYPES OF PRINTING METHOD?
1. Offset Lithography - This is popularly known as “hot off the press” printing. The text and images are engraved onto a metal plate which has ink applied to it. The plate is then applied to a rubber mat and the rubber mat is the one being pressed to the paper where the final texts and images are being replicated. This type of printing can be excellent because it produces high-definition images which are sharp and clean. However, this type of method cannot be cost-effective for companies that often changes information on their printing. Offset lithography can only make sense if you are planning to print large quantities of materials and when the information on your print doesn’t change. Additionally, an offset machine takes a lot of storage space so finding a space for this machine will be most likely a problem if you are renting a small spaced office unit.

2. Digital Printing - This printing method is a more developed one for it doesn’t require you to print plates before pressing it on a material. The ink that is used in this kind of printer can be inkjet or laser. Furthermore, the material that can be printed on may vary from paper, glass, metal, canvas, photo paper and many other medium. If you are planning to print a number of documents, multi-page printing can be done in seconds. On the other hand, if you plan to print just a small quantity of documents, you still don’t have to worry because it will not be costly unlike printing through offset. To put it simply, the mechanical steps that are done in offset lithography are eliminated in digital printing.

CHECKLIST FOR PRINTING
One cannot argue whether offset is better than digital or digital is better than offset because both has a number of advantages and disadvantages. However, for you to determine the best cost-effective printing method, you should take into consideration the following criteria:

• Quantity - the number of documents that you will print. Offset printer can be advantageous in this criterion than digital. In offset printing. The cost of the metal plate and other materials needed to produce the document will go down as the number of documents printed goes up. As for digital printing, the number of documents is directly proportional to the cost. It’s safe to say that when you only need a few copies of the document, it is better to opt for a digital printer.

• Medium - What medium will you use in printing? Paper, wood, glass, etc? This time, the digital printer is more advantageous than offset. Most offset printers only print on paper and other thin materials like plastic. Printing texts or images in a glass or metal is almost impossible to be done with offset.

• Colour - Digital printing offers four colour process printing while offset offers more variety of colours.

• Proofing - For proofing, digital printing can be more cost-efficient. Why? Because you only need to print a single copy of the document to tell whether it is already approved or not. Offset printers are made for mass production of documents. For you to be able to check a document, a batch of documents must be printed first to make use of the metal plate.

• Customization - What if you need to change certain texts or parts in your document? It’s needless to say that digital printers are more advantageous in this criterion.

WHAT IS BEST TO USE FOR MY COMPANY?
Most companies nowadays use digital printing. Despite of the comparison between the two, companies today use digital printing because it is handy and more modern. However, big printing companies such as newspaper or magazine publishers still use offset lithography because it can cost them less than digital printing.

SINCE DIGITAL PRINTING IS BEST FOR MY BUSINESS, HOW WILL I REDUCE MY COST OF PRINTING?
An average employee is estimated to print 60 pages per day or 12,000 sheets in a year. Company managers do not have the time to check the details of the printed copy like for who was it printed or from which device was it printed or who printed it? But as soon as the user becomes aware that the prints are being tracked, the number of documents that are printed drops significantly.

Print management is about reviewing and controlling the entire print environment -- making the users knowledgeable of the cost of printing that drives them to change their habits to achieve a more cost-efficient printing.

Capita Right Documents Solutions has a unique managed document services that let you manage your printing. Visit our page to know more how our services can save you from a high printing cost.